BY JNO. GILMER SPEED.
If six persons casually thrown together look at the moon when it is high in the heavens, and each be asked how large the moon seems to be, it is more than likely that the questioner will receive six different answers. This probably would not be the case if the moon were near the horizon and just rising or just setting.
The differences in the answers to the first query will be due to the perfect or imperfect action of the various eyes. The comparative uniformity of the answers in the second instance would be due to the nicer adjustment of the eyes by seeing at the same time with the moon familiar objects on the earth, such as houses and trees, which would afford a standard of measurement.
Many persons old and young have remarked what I have just noted. I have often observed such differences of vision, but never gave any particular thought to the matter until the beautiful gilded statue of Diana on top of the lofty tower of the Madison Square Garden was erected as a weather-vane. The arrow of the chaste huntress points in the direction of the prevailing wind.
To me the statue, when it was first erected, seemed at least ten feet tall. To another of my friends it seemed a trifle smaller, and so did the appearance vary, until the sixth of my companions said that to him the statue seemed no larger than a good-sized doll—that is, about two feet in height.
Then we turned to the moon, and here again were six opinions. They varied from between attributing to the moon the size of a barrel-head, eighteen inches in diameter, and the size of a breakfast plate, about seven and a half inches. I was puzzled and interested, and as I saw larger than any of my friends, I was afraid that my eyes were in some way out of focus.
Next day I went to an optician to ascertain whether or not I had normal vision. I was put through the usual tests of reading, without the aid of glasses, sentences in different-sized letters. Then the optician declared that I saw with most unusual accuracy. I was puzzled at this, for I regarded Mr. Augustus St. Gaudens, who had made the weather-vane statue of Diana, as the most gifted sculptor in America, and Mr. Stanford White, the designer of the tower upon which the statue stands, as one of our most accomplished architects. These gentlemen could not have made a mistake, I thought, for surely they did not mean that Diana should have to one standing on the ground the appearance of a giantess.
It happened that the shop of the optician I consulted was in the neighborhood of Madison Square. Looking from the windows, one could see Diana changing her front as the spring winds shifted. Still she seemed at least ten feet in height. I turned to the optician.
"Have you normal vision?" I asked.
"I am not so fortunate," he replied.